


You think you are a man

by lazlong



Series: All Alone [2]
Category: Gone With the Wind - All Media Types, Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Genre: F/M, Magic Realism, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 18:51:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5795860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazlong/pseuds/lazlong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is sharp and dark in these days, and do not suffer disobiedience. At all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You think you are a man

**Author's Note:**

> Drabble writing challenge.

_Pork._

She, the young and fickle thing, has grown sharp around edges and there is darkness within her, a single-minded obsession, and for a life of him, he did not see that coming.

Nineteen, never to be considered serious, for she was not a son, not expected to take over after his old master, who waited and wanted for son, in vain.

Yet, he has lived so long only knowing when to bow his head and follow the most unlikely master.

***

She is now speaking very little and very short, and expects immediate doings to her biddings.

Her voice is a whip, swishing over the heads of those, here, in Tara – stranded together are remains of her father's booming roar, when he commanded and words sting within soul and mind of those, objecting; this unnatural sharpness bites just like her mother's, Ellen's, who considered all of them be tools, despite lady-like deception.

Nobody objects her anymore, because there is no use – there is no remorse in her, she wants all of them fed, clothed and couldn't care less for anything else.

***

She has shredded all the pretending before few man left in the household, even the slightest pretending of dumbness, and Pork sometimes thinks that old master Gerald was not wise in keeping the Tara, despite winning it; because it can't be for good, to build house in such an old place where ancient souls still are, souls before the white man came, before the black folk was taken here. Because, because he sees in his Mistress with each day coming more and more of Gerald, young and dumb and determined, this obsession with wasteland, readiness to die, and drag everybody else alongside, whether up or down, s/he does not care. But when the morning comes, then he thinks, he got silly in his old age, and it is not possible. Yet, she frightens him, and he tries not to object. No, misus, he wants to live. Even if he is not sure how.

**

In the evenings, she is drunk. She drinks cheep booze, drinks either to forget or to remember, and never ever he has seen woman to take to booze so quick yet hold herself so long. When he helps her slight, sickly thin and unnaturally strong body to bedroom, then he could swear, this is Gerald, because she slurs just like him, and swears and mumbles. But he is servant, and that night decades ago, he was given the best of masters possible, when he was _won._ He keeps his mouth shut, and his thoughts – by himself.

_*_

Then, _he_ arrives. Sick, shot, delirious. Dark and sharp, all angles, huge body of man, now skeletal, paper thin skin, white teeth. Another mouth to feed, another body to take care of.There is brief look, of contempt, of something.. but when the middle kid of his master tries to speak up, of honour and reputation, foolishly, then the words from the mistress'  mouth leaves scarred everybody present..

*

So she does not turn him away ( _and nobody else dares even to_ think _about turning him away_ ), she does not swear so much, yet grows even more brittle and determined, and drunk. And, for life of him, the look in her eyes when eyeing this mess of man, of _mixed_ blood, he could swear, of very mixed blood, is that of one determined sooner to die than to submit. He knows it quite well, because it is the look of his father before the very first master he remembers, beaten to death and it is look of his brother, killing the master. Now, he does not wonder, what exactly has happened to his mistress, because he knows. It is look of freedom, and readiness to die before yielding to the will of others.

*

_He_ keeps silence, speaks little, but there is something stupid in him, with each moment he regains his strength. False arrogance, wish to command out of habit rather than necessity.

_He called her ignorant Irish, she shot him in leg._

Finally.


End file.
